Different This Time
by DebC75
Summary: Sam becomes an AU cop after college and Dean stays a hunter. But can they help one another when the time comes?
1. Chapter 1

Different This Time

by DebC

Summary: "I'm a federal agent, Dean. Whatever you're here for, I don't want to know about it. In fact, it's best that I didn't."

Author's Notes: Written for comment_fic, prompt of: Supernatural/NCIS, any, Sam became a navy cop but Dean stayed a hunter.

For time line purposes, this is Season 3 of NCIS and Season 1 of Supernatural. Jess isn't dead, and Sam is probational NCIS agent, recruited by Gibbs after he didn't get into law school after all. It's highly possible that this will not be a stand alone piece.

"Different This Time"

Dean pulled the Impala into the circular driveway, going slowly through the circle as he checked the immaculate little townhouses he saw before him for address numbers. They all looked the same. They all looked... normal and boring. All the things Sammy had said he wanted when he left home all those years before. It had come after a huge fight with their father, and... Dean didn't want to think about it. He hated thinking about all things - untrue things, in his opinion - Sam had said in his anger. None of it was true. Their father was the best father in the world. He was like God. He was better than God, in Dean's eyes. He was cool and amazingly kick-ass, smart - street smart, not that candy-assed book learned smart like Sam wanted so badly - and capable of handling whatever threw itself at him.

This? Dean thought, finally locating the townhouse which was supposed to be Sammy's, was an abomination. A normal, boring, civilian abomination.

"How on earth could you live like this, Sammy?" he muttered under his breath. "I mean, really? All it needs is a white picket fence and you have Hell."

His brother wasn't here to answer him, of course, and Dean couldn't stick around anyway. At least, not during the day time. He'd passed a couple of motels on his way here, though, and that was good. He could come back later on tonight, when there was a ghost of a chance Sammy would be home. He only hoped his brother would be willing to listen to reason.

******

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs barked as he breezed past the desk where Tony was busy ragging on the probies. Both of them. Again. "Are you working, DiNozzo?"

"Hard as I can, Boss!" Tony shot back, while the other two agents exchanged glances.

McGee rolled his eyes skyward and muttered, "yeah, right." Gibbs heard him and whirled around, pointing at McGee first and then the other agent. "McGee, Winchester, get your asses back to the crime scene and see what else you missed."

"Missed, Boss?" Sam echoed, his brow wrinkling in confusion.

"Did I stuttered, Winchester?" Gibbs shot back with a glare that made the incredibly tall younger agent shrink noticeably.

"No, sir," Sam mumbled as he and McGee quickly escaped. As they left, they could hear Tony protest being left behind.

"But the probies..." he whined.

"Don't need you to hold their hands, DiNozzo. Now get back to those phone calls," Gibbs' voice insisted as it faded away from their ears.

******

"What exactly are we looking for, anyway?" Sam asked, as he looked around the densely wooded area where the dead body of a Marine had been found early yesterday morning.

McGee shrugged. "Dunno, but Abby and Ducky were both grasping at straws when Gibbs went to see them, so that means we retrace our steps."

Sam nodded his head. He hadn't been with the team long, and largely, he felt out of place most of the time. It was like being on the road with his father and brother, with them working so well together and Sam just... along for the ride. Tony was Gibbs' 'golden boy.' Tim was the computer geek. Abby was also good with computers, but in a quirky Goth way that defied convention. And Ziva was... well, God's gift to his big brother, if Dean had been around to appreciate her. Tough and gorgeous at the same time. And Sam had been thrust into the middle of it when he'd been hired on after failing to get accepted to law school. Recruited by Gibbs, he tried to remind himself. Tim had assured him that if Gibbs hadn't thought he had 'the right stuff' he wouldn't be there, but Tony had the uncanny knack of making him feel inferior. Calling him probie was one thing, but most often than not, it was "the Doublemint Dweebs" and that just served to make Sam feel very redundant at times. An outsider no matter where he went.

"Well, we'd best get started," he said to McGee, and they began the tedious task of searching the crime scene a second time. Oh well, he thought, as he stopped to examine some leaves which had been splattered with the victim's blood, it could be worse. He could be out here with Dean and it could be some kind of man-eating boogeyman they were hunting.

******

Sam was tired when he left work that night. He and McGee had been all over those woods for the second time in two days, but at least they'd found what Gibbs had sent them there to find - the killer's DNA amid the leaves. Still, it left him bone-weary and ready for a hot bubble bath, a warm meal, and some down time with Jess. He was, in fact, so focused on those wonderful thought that he didn't notice the car parked in front of the townhouse until he was almost half way up the steps.

No. It couldn't be.

He looked again, just to make sure, but there in his neighbor's second spot, sure enough, was the Impala. A cold feeling blossomed in the pit of Sam's stomach, and it felt too much like fear and hunger pains. The phantom remains of his life with his family.

"Maybe it's a different car," he mutted under his breath as he unlocked the front door and pushed it open. "Hey, Jess --" he called out as he stepped inside.

"Oh good! You're home!" his fiancee called from the kitchen. Sam followed the sound of her voice, just as she was saying, "You'll never guess who I found on our doorstep tonight!"

"Dean." It wasn't a guess, though, as Sam suddenly found himself staring at his older brother. Dean, ham sandwich in one hand and a bottle of water in the other, was leaning against the counter as he watched Jess put the finishing touches on their dinner. He smiled up at Sam... if you could call the cocky smirk an actual smile. Sam resisted the very strong urge he had to punch that look right off his brother's face.

"Hello, Sammy. Long time, no see."

******

"A cop, huh?" Dean commented as Sam walked out to the Impala with him.

"NCIS," Sam said, crossly, for the third time. "I'm a federal agent, Dean. Whatever you're here for, I don't want to know about it. In fact, it's best that I didn't."

"What do you mean by that? 'Whatever I'm here for'?" Dean tried to look hurt. "Can't a guy just want to see his little brother?"

Sam snorted. Jess may have been fooled by Dean's thousand-dollar smile and smooth as silk charm, but Sam wasn't. He knew his brother better than that. "No, Dean. You can't. And I won't even go into how you found me in the first place. Just... go on back to Dad and unfind me."

"I can't do that, Sammy."

"Like Hell you can't. Just go, Dean," Sam insisted. "Leave me and Jess alone."

Dean shook his head and stared at the Impala for a long time before looking back at his brother. "I wish I could that, Sammy, but I need you, man. Dad's... Dad's gone."

"What do you mean, gone?" Sam echoed with a sinking feeling.

"He went on a hunting trip a couple months back and I haven't seen or heard from him since."

Sam blinked, twice, trying to reign in the confusion swirling in his brain. Dad? Gone? Dean, unable to contact him? "He's been incommunicado before, Dean," he reminded, but the words sounded desperate in his own ears.

"It's different this time," Dean told him.

"Different ... how?"

Dean shook his head, looking around as if the shadows had ears. "Not here, man. I won't go into it out in the open like this." He sighed and shoved a motel matchbook into Sam's hand. "Here's where I'm staying," he said urgently. "Room 16. Come by around Noon tomorrow and I'll fill you in."

"I have to work tomorrow, Dean," Sam reminded him. He was beginning to think this was a ploy to get him back into the family business.

Dean shrugged and put his hand on the driver's side door of the Impala, clearly ready to leave. "Suit yourself, little brother. I'm checking out tomorrow afternoon. Gotta keep moving if I'm gonna find Dad. I need your help, but I'm not gonna beg anymore than I already have. If this family means anything to you at all, you'll be there come Noon."

"Dammit, Dean," Sam said to the shadows as he watched the Impala pull away. "I was out of it, damn you." He was out of it. He'd left that life behind him when he'd left his family for college. He was out... and and yet, somehow he knew come tomorrow, he'd be at the - he turned the matchbook over - Lucky Aces Motel at Noon, anyway.

Because no matter what he did, no matter how far away went, hunting wasn't a life you simply walked away from. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Winchester! What do you think you're doing?"

"Going to lunch, boss," Sam answered, sounding like he was on the receiving end of an interrogation.

"Not now, you're not. We have a killer to catch. No one is going to lunch until I say so, you got that, Winchester?"

Gibbs had watched the newest member of his team for some time now before calling attention to the fact that he was doing so. The young man jumped a foot higher than he already was, and from the desk next to his, Tony snickered.

"What are you laughing at, DiNozzo?" Gibbs countered, smacking Tony on the back of the head, before adding a curt, "get back to work."

"On it, Boss!" Tony snapped quickly to attention, but Gibbs barley acknowledged it as he breezed past Tony's desk and grabbed Sam by the arm.

"My office, Winchester, now!" he barked, leading Sam to the elevator. Once inside, he hit the emergency stop button as hard as he could. The elevator stopped and he simply stood there, waiting, while Sam shuffled his feet awkwardly. Finally, Gibbs broke the silence with a softly spoken, "if there's anything you'd like to tell me, Winchester, now would be the time."

"There's nothing, Gibbs. Boss, sir," Sam answered just as nervously as he had in the bullpen a few moments before.

"Uhuh," Gibbs said with a nod of his head. "Then why don't I believe you?"

Sam looked away, focusing his attention on the crack between the doors. It was then that his cell phone rang. At first, he let it ring and ring until it went to voice mail. It stopped, and then began to ring again.

"Aren't you going to answer that? Might be important," Gibbs prompted, and watched amused, as Sam scowled and did as he was told.

"Dean... yeah, no... look, I'm sorry, but I couldn't ... I told you I had to work, Dean. What more do you want from me?" Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I can't do that. You KNOW WHY, Dean. No... I'm out. I can't help you, I'm sorry. Fuck."

While Sam spoke, Gibbs observed him quietly. He was tense - beyond tense and more like rigid - like he was holding in a great deal of anger and rage. Dean, that was the kid's older brother. Gibbs had never met Dean Winchester, but over the years, he'd heard enough from his old Marine Corps buddy, John, that he knew what the boys were like. 'Sam isn't like Dean or I, Jethro,' John and written once. 'He's smart and sensitive and just not cut out for the life. Sometimes I worry about him.'

"That your brother?" he asked quietly. Sam didn't know that Gibbs knew his father, had served with him in the Corps years before. He didn't know that when Gibbs had approached him for a job, it had been because he'd recognized the name and had known that John Winchester's boy could use a decent break.

"Yeah," Sam said, tucking the cell phone back into his coat pocket. He ran his hand through his hair again, looking both frustrated and embarrassed. "He came into town unexpectedly last night and expected me to drop everything for him. I told him I had to work, but... " he sighed. "Dean just doesn't get it. Not everything revolves around him."

"I see," Gibbs said, calmly. "Family troubles, then?"

Sam shook his head. "Nothing Dean can't handle on his own."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that, Sam? Once this case is over, you can request some time off, if you need it."

Again, Sam shook his head. "If I requested time off every time my family messed something up, I'd never hold down a job," he told Gibbs.

"I see," Gibbs said again. He could see a whole lot of tension between Sam and his brother, even through that one phone call. The trouble was, he didn't know the source of that tension. A few months ago, he'd left a message for John on his voice mail, letting him know that he'd hired the kid and so far, he'd heard nothing back from John. Which wasn't that unusual for John Winchester. After his wife died, he'd gone a little off the deep end. Like most people do. "Well, if you change your mind, just say something." Gibbs clasped Sam's shoulder amicably and released. He had no delusions - the kid wasn't going to open up to him. At least not yet.

******

"Damn it, Sammy, damn it, damn it, damn it. Fuck!" Dean continued swearing as he threw clothes into his duffle bag, on top of his father's old notebook and a couple of guns. He'd honestly expected his brother to show up. Why, he wasn't so sure now, but he had all the same. Sam was his brother, his own flesh and blood. With Dad missing - and maybe even dead by now - they were all each other had left in the whole world.

Dean and Sam Winchester.

Didn't Sammy see that? Didn't he get it? They needed each other. Dean needed his brother. Why else would he drive all the way across country, in the opposite direction as Dad's slowly-growing-cold trail, just to see Sam? It sure as Hell wasn't because he missed the whining from the back seat about missing school or having a normal life.

No, it was because Sam had been his last hope in finding Dad. The two of them together, on the road like it was meant to be.

Instead, Sammy blows him off because he's a cop now and he has more important things to do than worry about where their father went off to, chasing which monsters, or if he was ever going to come back at all. How fuckin' selfish could a guy get, anyway?

Dean scowled as he zipped the bag shut, then slung it over his shoulder.

"Whatever," he told the empty room. "I tried to talk to him, but he just... couldn't be bothered to care about his old man. Or his brother. I tried."

He closed the motel room door with a slam behind him, dropped off the key card at the front desk, and that was it. He had wasted enough precious time on the idea that his brother might actually give a shit. Whatever. He was out of here, just as fast as the Impala could take him. He had a lot of ground to cover while he still could.


End file.
